“Only, in Haiti, I realized, is it possible to drink rum and haggle with a god.”

“In the West we cling to the past like limpets. In Haiti the present is the axis of all life. As in Africa, past and future are but distant measures of the present, and memories are as meaningless as promises.”

“The measure of a society is not only what it does but the quality of its aspirations.”

“I want to lose all harshness of jagged nerves, to be above all gentle. I feel we have achieved victory for that almost more than anything-to be able to cultivate gentleness.George Malory to his wife Ruth at the end of the Great War”

“Language is an old-growth forest of the mind.”

“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”

“The surface of the Earth itself is an immense loom upon which the sun weaves the fabric of existence. ”